A COUPLE of Swindon garden centres are being sold by national chain Wyevale.

They’re described by the firm handling the sale as profitable centres, which presumably accounts for the fact that one is going as a leasehold for a quarter of a million quid, while the other is a freehold priced at £5.75m.

If anybody out there would care to lend me the cash until payday - ideally the last payday in about the year 2090 - I’d be very grateful.

I’ve always wanted to own a garden centre, as I reckon I could make even a very profitable one generate more cash.

It’s all very well catering for those who are generally good at gardening and can get the things in their gardens to resemble the descriptions on the packet, the box or the label, but what about the rest of us?

We need a section of the garden centre all to ourselves, one that sells exactly the same things but with the labels altered to match the likely outcome. Then we’ll get to experience the same satisfaction as those who know what the hell they’re doing.

Next to the rolls of turf, for example, would be a sign saying: “Carefully prepare the soil by digging and raking thoroughly.

“Place the turf, water it daily and add lawn feed as required. Add anything you like, for that matter. Cream of mushroom soup, say, or Tizer. It doesn’t really matter, because within a few days large patches of the grass will have snuffed it, and if we have so much as five minutes of sunshine the edges will curl up and big, horrible gaps will appear between the strips.

“For the look you’re aiming for, imagine the scalp of the Jolly Green Giant were he to suffer male pattern baldness and a stubborn dose of impetigo.

“If you see a mysterious lump in the lawn, be sure to account for all pets before getting the roller out.”

Next to the turf would be the boxes of grass seed, with the label changed to manage our expectations:

“Rake the horrible bald patches on your lawn. Sprinkle the seed liberally, water thoroughly and consider placing netting to keep birds away.

“Actually, forget that bit about the netting. The seeds won’t grow anyway, so you might as well let the birds get some use out of them.

“With a bit of luck they’ll eat the lot and forget to spit out those weird ones that somehow found their way into the box, the ones which produce not grass but some rather frightening vine which takes over the entire neighbourhood within days.”

Large sticky labels would be placed over the photos on the packets of vegetable and fruit seeds.

They would say: “Ignore everything you might have heard about how this vegetable or fruit should look.

“Tell yourself that it is only because we are so used to the uniformity of these items in supermarkets that we are startled by some of our home-grown examples.

“It is nothing to do with the home-grown examples being a terrifying affront to nature.

“For best results, plant the seeds on January 1 at the earliest and December 31 at the latest. Should you be able to distinguish whatever comes up from the weeds which are the only things to thrive in your garden, plant the seedlings in little rows.

“When the time comes to harvest your crop, look up some pictures of deadly nightshade, henbane, digitalis and other common poisonous British plants on Wikipedia or some similar website. Should the things you think are carrots, peas, strawberries or whatever resemble any of those in the pictures, we suggest you avoid consuming them.”